Valentine’s Day is the one holiday that is devoted to Love, plain and simple – to Cupid, and to romantic love expressed between human beings. Most of us have experienced this kind of love at least once in our lives, and hopefully much more than that. The most fortunate have actually found a partner who supports them throughout their life in the earthly realm. To be complete, such love is always reciprocal, and mutually beneficial.

Love is truly that which “makes the world go round.” The world would be a pretty miserable place without it. And yet even such admirable cases of mutual love are not always as pure as they might be – they involve “conditions.” Examples include cases of jealousy, or a possessive “love” that more resembles a form of barter, in which one chooses to love only if certain conditions are met. In fact, the real world of couples’ relationships all too often involves adapting self-serving conditions between the two. Such relationships fail to offer the reward of significant mutual benefit.

A “purer” form of love, less involved with conditions and such apparent barter, might be seen between parents and children. It’s easy to love newborn babies in all their fresh innocence, but babies grow up into teenagers, and so on. Ideally, parents love their children “no matter what,” and offer compassion, kindness, and all manner of support even in the face of lesser human failings.

I submit that the rarer, more extraordinary examples of mutually beneficial unconditional love are far more satisfying and fulfilling than the conditional love so often found in relationships. We cultivate far richer relationships as we become less egocentric and take a bigger view of who we are and why we are here. In addition, we come to see that no soul is an island – we grow tremendously and more fully satisfy our purpose as humans when we develop a loving relationship with another person that demands no conditions at all.

This Valentine’s Day, I suggest taking a bigger view of how our relationships in life help to serve a rich purpose in our soul growth, in getting right at the heart of why we even exist. Ideally, that bigger view includes no “conditions,” and thus also broadens the relationships that contribute to our learning and growth. Let that broader unconditional love first and foremost include yourself, because so many of the world’s problems result from the fact that we don’t even love ourselves enough – not in a selfish, childish fashion, but in a sense that acknowledges the divinely sourced beings we all are; not dependent upon the approval or affection of others, but centered in the unique value of your soul and its connections. Then allow that unconditional love to spread, to include truly loving all souls. Such unconditional love has infinite power to heal, whether the individual, or the whole world. And any relationship is an ideal place to start in assessing the power such love without conditions can truly have.

So, Happy Valentines Day! Use this special time to start delving into the benefits of unconditional love. “All the world loves a lover” has never been truer than in the case of one who loves without demanding some favor in return.

I had a proof of heaven memory while watching my parents look at a view from the front window of my father’s car, and I was in a baby carrier in the back seat: it is still the most profound and real moment I have had to date and has kept me going. The love between them was tangible and matched what we feel in Heaven. I do my best in this life to demonstrate that unconditional love moment to moment. The fact that it is impossible to dim that experience is a clue that it didn’t happen in my brain.

Thank you for sharing your experience and knowledge with us all. , A Great learning experience for me, as I had a near death experience , I had taken medicine that I was allergic too, at that time I did not know of this condition I had. the result left me feeling so light-headed and sick in a way , hard to explain that feeling of just before passing out, but honestly I really felt like I was going to die, I quickly told my husband that ” I just took my new meds and I feel like I’m going to die”! , And well after about 20 minutes I passed out after calling out to my husband then hitting my head on the fan I landed on my front porch doorway , is all I remember, when I woke up I could vaguely remember my husband quietly telling me to lie back down, then he said ” you quit breathing for about 5 minutes, I had to do CPR on you, lie back down!,”, “I called the ambulance, wait I’ll be right back”, although I did not have any memory of those 5 minutes when I quit breathing, for me this was a near death experience, afterwards came my spiritual gifts, one of them being a healer, I read in a spiritual book not long ago that in order to receive certain spiritual gifts , a person would have to be in a near death experience or some great trama of a sort. Which is true in my case, I did not have the healing ability beforehand, I was 45 years old when that happen also. It’s amazing!!! The people and pets I healed, But sadly I lost my ability when the death of my neice, my brother and Aunt all within a year period happened ,this was so sad for me, I have not experienced death before in my family, then almost immediately I lost my ability to heal, I did not know at that time how or why that happened, I was depressed.after several months I was trying so hard to figure out how to get my healing abilities back, the depression put hole in my Aura as I have read about ,I needed to fix the holes, I continued to read more and more books from literally everywhere about spirituality and healing and nothing in those books did I Read about loss of abilities, I came across your article on your experience and about your book “Proof of Heaven “, and “living in a mindful universe”, I read your description of the books and that’s where I have found my answer! I can now fix the holes, so to speak , in my Aura and excitedly heal again!, Although I know this won’t happen overnight, but I’m now on my way to heal again, just to put the love back into my life, although the loss of family members has scarred me deeply, I am stronger now. And I thank you so very much, I can’t wait to read more of your articles and books and all that you recommend.
Your Awesome!
You healed me!
Heidi Campbell

This might be unrelated to the topic, but I wanted to post it somewhere in hopes that Dr. Alexander would read it. My question is: Noticing that you have been doing lots of research in regard to concepts of the afterlife from writers of the past, have you read Seth speaks? I’m normally not a follower of people that channel spirits, but after reading some of your books, I was amazed at the similarities in concepts presented by the channeled spirit Seth.

Hello, I’m a skeptical person. I’ve been in the military and in law enforcement for over 20 years. I’ve seen terrible things in my career and I’ve witnessed the awful things people sometimes do to each other. That being said…. The other night, my 10 year old daughter was getting ready for bed when she started to cry. After speaking with her, she stated that she was scared that if she died, she would be all alone in darkness. I believe in God, but more in theory than in fact. I did not know what to tell my sobbing daughter. I scrambled for answers. I was just trying to ease her worried mind. Then, I Googled, “ proof of heaven “, and a Newsweek article citing your afterlife experience popped up. I read my 10 year old comforting excerpts from your article. This seemed to calm her down enough to go to sleep. I was intrigued by your experience, so I started researching the topic for myself. After reading more about your explanation about the afterlife, I think you also “calmed me down enough to go to sleep”. Your explanation of the afterlife carries more weight with me due to your extensive education and work experience. Thank you for being brave enough to share your experience with a skeptical world.

Dear Dr. Alexander,
I love your “Proof of Heaven” book. My boyfriend broke up with me right before Valentine’s Day. I realized that indeed, it takes a lot to love a person unconditionally. I found myself broken-hearted, unwanted, unloved. All the “I love you” he said to me seems meaningless as how it can be so easy to walk away if it were true love. I feel as if my heart was pierced with thorns. Even so, my heart still loves him and wishes him all the happiness in life. And from then, I learned to love him more freely, openly and unconditionally. During the midst of suffering, pain and afflictions, I’ve been listening to your book and found a great comfort and hope. It gives me a lot of hope and confidence that as long as I continue to cultivate love and compassion, I will be fine, whether it will be reciprocal or not. Because God loves me and God doesn’t abandon me.
Thank you so much Dr. Alexander! You’ve helped me a lot throughout my journey…
God bless you always!

Thank you Dear Eben to such a precious message. Because we are all so different, our karma’s are complex and so interconnected with a conglomeration of intent, inspiration, attitudes, deceptions, it can take many lifetimes for the “penny to drop” As a species we are under the influence and nuance where others were and still are. It is a journey of discovering how honest we think we can be about ourselves as well as others. It is not easy to love everyone, the Light only switches on, when we begin to be honest with ourselves and not hold the attitude of, “Well, I would not do this or that” Oh yeah! We have all been down that road and with the freedom of choice, rattle on in the same vibration, until our soul opens a door to let the light in, which according to one’s actions and intent can be a catalystic event. I am reading a book,” The Transformative Power of Near-Death Experiences” put together by Dr Penny Sartori and Kelly Walsh. The one word that embraces these experiences is Love and each one read in this book and those like it, well, I just well up. with a sense of companionship and identification. What a privilege we have to be living this incarnation, at this time. As usual, much love and blessings. Margaret.

Eben Alexander III MD

Eben Alexander, MD, was an academic neurosurgeon for over 25 years, including 15 years at the Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Children’s Hospital, and Harvard Medical School in Boston, with a passionate interest in physics and cosmology. He is the author of the New York Times #1 bestseller Proof of Heaven and The Map of Heaven. His third book, co-authored with Karen Newell, Living in a Mindful Universe, was released in October 2017. Learn more…